Travis Kalanick’s New Robotics Venture: Atoms
▼ Summary
– Travis Kalanick’s new company, Atoms, focuses on robotics for the food, mining, and transportation industries and integrates his existing ghost kitchen business, CloudKitchens.
– Atoms will build a specialized “wheelbase for robots” for industrial applications, explicitly avoiding humanoid robots in favor of task-specific machines.
– Kalanick is poised to acquire Pronto, an autonomous vehicle startup for industrial sites, and is already its largest investor, emphasizing the industrial sector as a primary focus.
– Reports indicate Kalanick is re-entering the self-driving vehicle space with major backing from Uber and aims to be more aggressive than competitors like Waymo.
– Kalanick previously led Uber’s self-driving division, which faced legal issues and was eventually sold, and he has expressed regret over Uber abandoning its own self-driving car development.
Travis Kalanick, the co-founder of Uber, has launched a new robotics venture named Atoms. This company aims to develop a foundational “wheelbase for robots” designed for industrial applications across the food, mining, and transportation sectors. Rather than focusing on humanoid robots, Atoms will concentrate on creating specialized machines for large-scale efficiency. Kalanick is integrating his existing ghost kitchen business, CloudKitchens, into this new enterprise, signaling a strategic pivot towards broader automation.
In a recent interview, Kalanick elaborated on his vision, stating that while humanoids have their uses, his focus is on specialized robots that operate at an industrial scale. He emphasized that the industrial sector is the company’s “main jam.” To immediately bolster its mining ambitions, Kalanick is on the verge of acquiring Pronto, an autonomous vehicle startup founded by his former Uber colleague, Anthony Levandowski. Kalanick is already the largest investor in Pronto, which specializes in technology for industrial and mining sites.
The move marks a significant return to autonomous vehicle technology for Kalanick. Reports indicate he has secured major backing from Uber and has expressed a desire to be more aggressive in deploying self-driving systems than competitors like Waymo. While Atoms’ website does not mention Uber, this financial support suggests a continued, albeit complex, relationship. Kalanick has ruled out using Atoms’ robotics for passenger transport in the near term, but acknowledged the broad potential of mastering physical movement, noting, “once you crack movement in the physical world, there’s lots of people who want access to that.”
Kalanick’s history with self-driving technology is both ambitious and controversial. During his tenure at Uber, he established the company’s self-driving division in 2015, recruiting Anthony Levandowski from Google. This move led to a high-profile lawsuit from Google, which accused Uber of stealing trade secrets. The companies settled, but Levandowski faced criminal charges and received an 18-month prison sentence, later pardoned by former President Trump. Uber continued its autonomous project after Kalanick’s 2017 resignation, which followed a series of crises involving workplace culture. The effort was ultimately sold to Aurora Innovation in 2020 after a fatal test vehicle accident in 2018. In a recent interview, Kalanick expressed regret over Uber’s decision to abandon its proprietary self-driving car development.
This new venture with Atoms represents Kalanick’s latest attempt to reshape industries through automation, leveraging his experience and resources to tackle the physical challenges of food service, mining, and logistics with a focused, robotics-first approach.
(Source: TechCrunch)
